Newt Gingrich funneled $350,000 into anti-gay hate groups

Former House Speaker, and likely presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich has been caught funneling over $350,000 into anti-gay hate groups in the past year.

Last year, as the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the American Family Association (AFA) launched a campaign to oust 3 Iowa state supreme court justices who had voted in favor of marriage equality, Gingrich not only spoke out verbally in favor of the campaign, but also funneled $350,000 to the AFA through his different front groups.

ThinkProgress previously reported on $200,000 that Gingrich funneled from an anonymous donor to the anti-marriage equality group Iowa for Freedom, which was also being funded by AFA Action, the political arm of the virulently anti-gay American Family Association.

The Associated Press revealed that one of the cogs in Gingrich’s vast network of business enterprises and front groups, ReAL Action, provided $125,000 to AFA Action. The Des Moines Registerreported that ReAL Action also contributed $25,000 to yet another Iowa anti-LGBT group, the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition.

AFA is not only of the nation’s most prominent anti-LGBT groups, it has been officially labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

As ThinkProgress has reported, the AFA is known for making incendiary comments about gays, including blaming gays for crop failure and various other biblical plagues, claiming that Hitler was gay, saying lesbians can’t be justices, equating gay sex with domestic terrorism, and equating gay sex to heroin, just to cite a few examples.

One thing seems clear: If Gingrich does decide to run, same-sex marriage will almost certainly be a front-burner issue in the 2012 presidential primaries.